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Source: Giuliani Traveled To Mar-a-Lago To Plead With Donald Trump To Pay His Legal Bills; Blinken Speaks To Whelan; Marion County Record Is Vindicated; Cancer Rates Rise In Younger Adults. Aired 9:30- 10a ET

Aired August 17, 2023 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[09:31:28]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, new reporting on the financial and ethical mess swirling around Rudy Giuliani and his tortured efforts to stay solvent. A source tells CNN Giuliani traveled to Mar- a-Lago to plead with Donald Trump to pay his legal bills. Giuliani is staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits, and that's on top of the new criminal charges.

CNN's senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz is following this story.

This pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, it's a - what seems like to beg for money, Katelyn. Please explain what happened here.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: John, seven figure legal bills, that is the weight of the money that Giuliani was under in this spring whenever he went to Mar-a-Lago with his attorney, Bob Costelo, to meet Trump in person and ask for help.

Now, this reporting comes from Kaitlan Collins and Paula Reed here at CNN last night. And the window into this episode in April is that Giuliani approached Trump in person and asked him, please help pay for all of this mess, all of these bills that he now owes.

And Donald Trump was apparently not that interested, although Trump ultimately did agree to give Guiliani some money to pay off some debts he had incurred. Debts specifically regarding the electronic records he had from his time working for Donald Trump that are being hosted by a company that charges a lot of money to host those records and to use those records as he has to respond to lawsuits.

That amount that the Save America PAC gave Giuliani was about $340,000. So, that paid off a $320,000 debt Giuliani had and then gave him a little boost extra of $20,000. But that is not even a bite out of the amount of legal bills that Giuliani has. It's not just electronic records. He's facing sanctions. He's facing a court order saying he needs to pay off his phone bill from 2020, $57,000.

And then there are all kinds of fees related to fighting lawsuits that are connected to what he said for Donald Trump, as his attorney, after the 2020 election. Legal fees, fees that could possibly come in the future if he is judged in court to have lost those lawsuits. Things that could be so great that it could put on -- a person on the path toward bankruptcy. And Donald Trump is not interested, at this time, in paying more towards Giuliani.

BERMAN: Wow, not interested in paying more. And just to be clear, so Giuliani, his lawyer, go to Mar-a-Lago to ask for money. Trump, not that interested in actually paying his bills that Giuliani, you know, charged him for as his attorney, but did agree to pay some, not out of his own pocket, though, right, Katelyn.

POLANTZ: Bills incurred after he was Trump's attorney but for responding to lawsuits that are about his time as his attorney. But Trump has been paying money for a lot of different people around him, even related to the 2020 election. But this situation with Giuliani is really intriguing in that they did have a parting of ways after the 2020 election, at a time when Giuliani was quite prominently out there talking about election fraud, working for Trump.

They parted ways. Clearly, they are not on the terms now where Trump is willing to cut the checks for the entirety of his legal bills as he faces lawsuits, as he responds to criminal investigations.

[09:35:04]

And there's this lingering question, will Giuliani cooperate in criminal investigations against Trump. What will he do there? But there also is this situation where he just has so many legal bills related to lawsuits that he's going to have to figure out something, selling his co-op in Manhattan potentially, but that's only a couple million dollars. It costs extraordinary amounts of money to face one massive lawsuit, let alone several.

BERMAN: You bring up a good point there, it may not be a good time for Trump if Giuliani is sideways with him, given that Giuliani might have incentive then to cooperate.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: I hadn't actually thought - I hadn't actually through about that. I keep getting stuck on $57,000 in phone bills. When was the last time you incurred $57,000 in phone bills?

BERMAN: It's like a flat fee. I - mostly a flat fee at this -- unlimited calling and texts.

BOLDUAN: That's what I - that's what all the ads tell me.

BERMAN: All right. Just saying.

BOLDUAN: Just saying. Maybe Rudy Giuliani should switch to T-Mobile. We'll see. All right, also on our radar this hour, a preliminary hearing is set for today for a U.S. Marine now charged with the sexual assault of a teenage girl. This started as a missing person's case. You'll probably remember this. The 14-year-old girl was reported missing by her grandmother in early June. She was then found in late June in the barracks at Camp Pendleton. According to the charging document, the Marine, who has not been named, is now charged with three counts of sexual assault of a child.

The abortion debate could once again be headed to the Supreme Court. Justice Department officials say that they will ask the justices, the high court, to review an appeals court ruling handed down yesterday that limits access to Mifepristone. Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug, is the most common form of abort - of eliminate -- terminating pregnancies in the United States right now. It also - this whole issue raises huge questions about the authority of the FDA, which has authorized the safe use of Mifepristone for decades.

New reports this morning about the head coach of the U.S. women's national soccer team, that he has resigned. According to the reports, the coach is expected to officially announce his departure today. It comes after the team was eliminated early on from the Women's World Cup after their loss to Sweden. The four-time World Cup winning team failed to reach the semi-finals for the first time in the tournament's history. The coach has been leading the team since October 2019.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Feeling like democracy won. Why the publisher of a Kansas newspaper says he feels vindicated after a police raid sparked national outcry. That story ahead.

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[09:42:00]

BOLDUAN: First on CNN, Secretary of State Tony Blinken speaking on the phone with Paul Whelan, the American being held in a remote prison camp in Russia. He's been detained, you'll remember, for more than four years now.

CNN's Kylie Atwood joins us from the State Department with more on this.

Kylie, what do we know about the call?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, according to a source familiar with this call, the secretary of state told Paul Whelan to keep the faith. He also said that the U.S. government is doing everything that they can to try and bring him home as quickly as possible.

Of course, we should note, Paul Whelan has been detained in Russia for more than four years now, Kate. It's hugely significant, of course, that he was able to get a call from the secretary of state in a prison camp in Russia. We shouldn't downplay the significance of that. This is, according to a source familiar, the second time that the

secretary has had a phone call with Paul Whelan. And we don't know the logistics of standing this up, but you can imagine it would be quite complicated to get these two on the phone together.

And David Whelan, who is Paul Whelan's brother, spoke yesterday with CNN about this call. He was able to speak to his brother about the call, who described it as long and frank. And he said this about the message that this phone call to Paul Whelan sends.

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DAVID WHELAN, BORTHER OF WRONGFULLY DETAINED AMERICAN PAUL WHELAN: I think that Secretary Blinken has obviously sent a message and that message is for Paul and for our family that the U.S. government is continuing to advocate for Paul and his release. And I think it's also a message for the Kremlin, that the U.S. government hasn't let up and, in fact, their lead foreign policy person is willing to call a prisoner, which is, I think, astounding.

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ATWOOD: Now we know, Kate, that earlier this year, more than eight months ago, the U.S. put a substantial offer on the table to Russia to try and secure Paul Whelan's release. And according to our sources, the Russians have not responded to that offer in a substantive way.

But, of course, a lot has happened since then. Even Gershkovich, that "Wall Street Journal" reporter, was detained in late March. So, U.S. officials are working feverishly, of course, to try and get both of those Americans home.

And it's a complicated challenge because, according to current and former U.S. government officials, what Russians really want is someone in return who is part of the Russian spying apparatus, and the U.S. government doesn't have any Russian spies in its custody. So, they're looking around the world for offers that they can offer up to Russia to try and get these two men who were wrongfully detained back to the United States.

BOLDUAN: Kylie, thanks for the update. Good to see you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, an abrupt reversal in a case that has outraged defenders of the free press and First Amendment. The top prosecutor in Marion County, Kansas, has withdrawn a search warrant on a local newspaper after that police raid. Computers, phones, and other items were taken from the "Marion County Record's" office, but will now be returned. The publisher of the paper has said that he feels like this is something that only happens in an authoritarian type of regime, not the United States.

[09:45:06]

CNN's Whitney Wild is here with the details for us. What is the publisher saying this morning now that this has all been

reversed by a DA?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's certainly saying that he feels vindicated. Right now the status quo here is that law enforcement has returned the items that were seized during that search last Friday. The Marion County attorney saying, upon further review o the information that was supplied to support the search warrant, it does not appear that there was enough of a nexus between an alleged crime and the places that were searched.

Eric Meyer, the publisher of that paper, says this all started when he got into a confrontation with a local restaurant owner. Later, he was looking into a story about that local restaurant owner. That story was never published until later when the restaurant owner, according to Eric Meyer, said publicly that the newspaper had done something improper when they received information about that local restaurant owner.

Basically, this all centers on a specific document that the restaurant owner believes had private information that was improperly obtained by the newspaper.

Here's what Eric Meyer, the publisher of that paper, had to say about this search warrant and specifically about how law enforcement approached the very document that was really at the center of all of this.

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ERIC MEYER, PUBLISHER AND CO-OWNER, "MARION COUNTY RECORD": The document that supposedly was stolen by us that actually was supplied by a source was sitting on my desk six feet from my computer, and they didn't take it in the -- in the raid. They just left it sitting there.

There's a lot of very strange things. They search a reporter's computer who had been sick all that week and hadn't even been involved in it. They also took her cell phone. She wasn't even in the office at that time. So, a lot of strange things that hint of possible intimidation and attempted bullying.

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WILD: The Marion County Police Department is the agency that sought that search warrant and executed that search warrant. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is now taking over.

Here's what the Kansas Bureau of Investigations said about all of this. "We will work with the Marion County Record, or their representative, to coordinate the prompt return of all seized items. Once our investigation concludes, we will present findings to the Marian County attorney for review.

Sara, it's important to note here, moving forward, that the proper process here would have been for law enforcement to serve a subpoena on the newspaper, work with their attorney to figure out what the parameters would be for supplying information. That is the proper process here.

And Bernie Rhodes, the newspaper's attorney, says that that's what he expects will happen moving forward, that law enforcement will work specifically with him.

They do not believe at this point that these items have been accessed by law enforcement. Bernie Rhodes added, though, Sara, that they have not been told they are totally cleared here. They have not been told they are no longer the subject of the investigation. This investigation continues. And we have many more questions that we'll seek to answer, Sara.

SIDNER: Wow. The way that this all went down is antithesis to the First Amendment. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out in the end.

Whitney Wild, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, alarming news on cancer rates now rising among younger Americans. What is driving this growth?

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[09:52:24]

BERMAN: A worrying new study this morning. Cancer rates rising among younger Americans, people in their 30s. And it is especially pronounced among women.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

Sanjay, what's going on here?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is a - this is a sort of a warning, I think, John, looking at what has happened over the last ten years. First of all, if cancer is diagnosed in someone under the age of 50, that's when it's considered early onset, just to get the definition out there.

What they found, going from 2010 to 2019, was that there was an increased incidence of these early onset diagnoses of cancer. I can show you the numbers specifically, but for every 100,000 people it went from roughly 100 for over 100,000 people to roughly 103 for every 100,000 people. That may not sound like a lot, but if you start to sort of project that into the future, you suddenly get a significant number of these cancers being diagnosed in younger people.

As you mentioned, John, it was most commonly in women and it was most commonly in people in their 30s that accounted for this increase. That's sort of the data there. They're still trying to figure out exactly what's going on. But what they also found was that men did not seem to account for the increase and people over the age of 50 sort of plateaued or even came down to some extent, John.

BERMAN: Huh, that's interesting, Sanjay. Any theories about why this is happening?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, there's a couple of theories. And I will tell you, it's a -- it's a pretty significant debate within the oncology community trying to figure out what exactly is driving that. But two sort of main things came to the top.

One is that we are better at screening now than even 10, 15, 20 years ago. So early onset cancers maybe get caught earlier because of that more advanced screening. But that doesn't seem to be all of it, John.

Another big component seems to be our overall health. We think about obesity. You know, a few decades ago, obesity accounted for a smaller percentage of the overall population, but now it is close to 40 percent of the population, and it is a younger population that is obese.

When we feed our bodies with all these extra calories, all this extra glucose and stimulate insulin, we are often also feeding cancer cells. So, as a result, you know, we talk about the consequences of obesity in terms of heart disease, diabetes, things like that. We have to start thinking about it with regard to cancer as well.

The three most common cancers that were accounting for most of the increase here that we're talking about were breast cancer, thyroid cancer and colon cancer.

[09:55:04]

So, that gives you some idea as well, John.

BERMAN: So, if you want to reverse this trend, if those are the theories about what might be causing it, it's just - it's a matter of eating healthier and staying more fit?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, look, the basics really do apply here. I think - I think what is interesting -- first of all, just to give you some context, there's about 1.5 million cancer diagnoses every year. And in this population of people, we're talking about 50,000 or so. So, it's a small percentage, to be clear. But, again, it could balloon up.

I think what we need to keep in mind is that screenings do make a difference. So, with regard to mammograms and colin cancer screenings, if you're of no increased risk, beginning those screenings on time, at the right time, 45.

But also, you know, again, yes, staying fit, thinking about obesity and sort of keeping this picture in the back of your mind that when we feed the body too many calories, you're feeding the whole body too many calories. And cancers that may not have otherwise not been a problem, not grown, you may be feeding those excessively as well and that could cause a problem, especially in young people.

BERMAN: That is an interesting way of thinking about it.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's an important shift of how we should be thinking about how we feed our bodies. That's a really important warning and also helpful advice from Sanjay, as always.

Coming up still for us, just days after the indictment against Trump in Georgia was made public, CNN is learning some are calling for violence against the grand jurors. That new reporting just ahead.

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